What is an A player?

We define an A Player this way: a candidate who has at least a 90 percent chance of achieving a set of outcomes that only the top 10 percent of possible candidates could achieve.

‍

SCORECARD:

The scorecard is composed of three parts: the job’s mission, outcomes, and competencies. 

‍

HOW TO CREATE A SCORECARD 

1. MISSION. Develop a short statement of one to five sentences that describes why a role exists. For example, “The mission for the customer service representative is to help customers resolve their questions and complaints with the highest level of courtesy possible.” 

2. OUTCOMES. Develop three to eight specific, objective outcomes that a person must accomplish to achieve an A performance. For example, “Improve customer satisfaction on a ten-point scale from 7.1 to 9.0 by December 31.” 

3. COMPETENCIES. Identify as many role-based competencies as you think appropriate to describe the behaviors someone must demonstrate to achieve the outcomes. Next, identify five to eight competencies that describe your culture and place those on every scorecard. For example, “Competencies include efficiency, honesty, high standards, and a customer service mentality.” 

4. ENSURE ALIGNMENT AND COMMUNICATE. Pressure-test your scorecard by comparing it with the business plan and scorecards of the people who will interface with the role. Ensure that there is consistency and alignment. Then share the scorecard with relevant parties, including peers and recruiters.

Example VP Sales Scorecard.  

Mission:  

Grow revenue at 30% over the next 3 years by signing large profitable contracts with b2c customers.  And to set up a predictable scaled sales organization that delivers consistent success across the team.  

Outcomes:

1. Grow domestic sales from $ 500 million to $ 600 million by December 31, and continue growing them by 20 percent per year for the next five years. 
2. Maintain at least a 45 percent gross margin across the portfolio of products annually. 
3. Topgrade the sales organization, ensuring 90 percent or more of all new hires are A Players as defined by the sales scorecards. Achieve a 90 percent or better ratio of A Players across the team within three years through hiring and coaching. Remove all chronic C Players within ninety days of identification. 
4. Create a sales strategy that the CEO approves during the annual planning cycle. 

Competencies:

• Efficiency. Able to produce significant output with minimal wasted effort. 
• Honesty/ integrity. Does not cut corners ethically. Earns trust and maintains confidences. Does what is right, not just what is politically expedient. Speaks plainly and truthfully. 
• Organization and planning. Plans, organizes, schedules, and budgets in an efficient, productive manner. Focuses on key priorities. • Aggressiveness. Moves quickly and takes a forceful stand without being overly abrasive. 
• Follow-through on commitments. Lives up to verbal and written agreements, regardless of personal cost. • Intelligence. Learns quickly. Demonstrates ability to quickly and proficiently understand and absorb new information. 
• Analytical skills. Able to structure and process qualitative or quantitative data and draw insightful conclusions from it. Exhibits a probing mind and achieves penetrating insights. 
• Attention to detail. Does not let important details slip through the cracks or derail a project. 
• Persistence. Demonstrates tenacity and willingness to go the distance to get something done. 
• Proactivity. Acts without being told what to do. Brings new ideas to the company. 

HOW TO SOURCE 

1. REFERRALS FROM YOUR PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL NETWORKS. Create a list of the ten most talented people you know and commit to speaking with at least one of them per week for the next ten weeks. At the end of each conversation, ask, “Who are the most talented people you know?” 

2. REFERRALS FROM YOUR EMPLOYEES. Add sourcing as an outcome on every scorecard for your team. For example, “Source five A Players per year who pass our phone screen.” Encourage your employees to ask people in their networks, “Who are the most talented people you know whom we should hire?” Offer a referral bonus. 

3. DEPUTIZING FRIENDS OF THE FIRM. Consider offering a referral bounty to select friends of the firm. It could be as inexpensive as a gift certificate or as expensive as a significant cash bonus. 

4. HIRING RECRUITERS. Use the method described in this book to identity and hire A Player recruiters. Build a scorecard for your recruiting needs, and hold the recruiters you hire accountable for the items on that scorecard. 

5. HIRING RESEARCHERS. Identify recruiting researchers whom you can hire on contract, using a scorecard to specify your requirements. Ensure they understand your business and culture. 

6. SOURCING SYSTEMS. Create a system that (1) captures the names and contact information on everybody you source and (2) schedules weekly time on your calendar to follow up. Your solution can be as simple as a spreadsheet or as complex as a candidate tracking system integrated with your calendar.

SCREENING INTERVIEW GUIDE

• What are your career goals? 
• What are you really good at professionally?
• What are you not good at or not interested in doing? 
• Who were your last five bosses, and how will they each rate your performance on a 1–10 scale when we talk to them?

‍

Getting curious - After a candidate answers one of the primary questions above, get curious about the answer by asking a follow-up question that begins with “What,” “How,” or “Tell me more.” Keep using this framework until you are clear about what the person is really saying.

‍

Sample questions include: What do you mean? What did that look like? What happened? What is a good example of that? What was your role? What did you do? What did your boss say? What were the results? What else? How did you do that? How did that go? How did you feel? How much money did you save? How did you deal with that?

‍

Detail:

Review the scorecard before the call to refresh your memory. Then begin the call by setting expectations, saying something like this: “I am really looking forward to our time together. Here’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to spend the first twenty minutes of our call getting to know you. After that, I am happy to answer any questions you have so you can get to know us. Sound good?” 

• What are your career goals?
  
  This first question is powerful because it allows you to hear about a candidate’s goals and passions before you taint the discussion with your own comments. You give the candidate the first word, rather than telling the person about the company so he or she can parrot back what you just said. Ideally, a candidate will share career goals that match your company’s needs. If he or she lacks goals or sounds like an echo of your own Web site, screen the person out. You are done with the call. Talented people know what they want to do and are not afraid to tell you about it. You also want to hear the candidate speak with passion and energy about topics that are aligned with the role. A clear misalignment should put you on alert. No matter how talented or qualified a candidate might be, someone who wants to be a manager is not going to be happy if you are trying to hire an individual contributor. Pass the name along to one of your colleagues if some other role in the company seems right for an able candidate, but don’t waste any more time considering him or her for the original position.

• What are you really good at professionally?
  
  This second question always generates plenty of dialogue. You won’t have any trouble getting people to list their strengths. We suggest you push candidates to tell you eight to twelve positives so you can build a complete picture of their professional aptitude.  Ask them to give you examples that will put their strengths into context. If they say they are decisive, press for an example of a time when this trait served them well, and remember, you are listening for strengths that match the job at hand. If you see a major gap between someone’s strengths and your scorecard, screen that person out.

• What are you not good at or not interested in doing professionally?
  
  The third question captures the other side of the balance sheet. You could ask for weaknesses outright, but too often that approach yields cookie-cutter, self-serving answers like “I am impatient for results” or “I work too hard.” Instead, let the candidates answer as they will. Then if you’re not satisfied, push them for a real weakness or a real area for development. If you hear these cookie-cutter answers, simply say, “That sounds like a strength to me. What are you really not good at or not interested in doing?” Talented people will catch the hint and reconsider their responses. If you still find yourself struggling, we recommend that you put the fear of the reference check into the person. You say, “If you advance to the next step in our process, we will ask for your help in setting up some references with bosses, peers, and subordinates. Okay?” The candidate will say, “Okay.” Then you say, “So I’m curious. What do you think they will say are some things you are not good at, or not interested in?” You will be amazed how much of a truth serum this technique can be at this stage of the screening interview. Your balance sheet on a candidate will be incomplete if you can’t identify at least five to eight areas where a person falls short, lacks interest, or doesn’t want to operate. If you come up woefully short, if the weaknesses are all strengths in disguise, or if you see any deal killers relative to your scorecard, then screen the candidate out.

• Who were your last five bosses, and how will they each rate your performance on a 1–10 scale when we talk to them?
  
  Notice the language used in the question: “How will they rate you when we talk to them?” Not “if we talk to them.” When. Candidates will be thinking, “Uh-oh, I’d better be honest. I can’t say my boss would give me a 10 when I really think he’ll say 4. Maybe I can get away with saying 5, but that is about it.” Ask candidates to list each boss and offer a rating for each. Follow up by pressing for details. What makes them think their boss would rate them a 7? Candidates will reinforce and expand upon the list of strengths and weaknesses they gave you in response to the first two questions.

You are looking for lots of 8’ s, 9’ s, and 10’ s in the ratings. Consider 7’ s neutral; 6’ s and below are actually bad. We have found that people who give themselves a rating of 6 or lower are really saying 2.  You want to have the feeling that you have found the one. If you have any hesitation, or if you find yourself thinking you want to bring candidates in just to test them a little more, then screen them out. Only 10-20% should make it through screening.  

Conclude the call by offering the candidate an opportunity to ask questions of you. You’ll be in a better position to sell the candidate on the virtues of your firm based on what you learned in the first twenty minutes of the call, assuming you liked what you heard.  

THE TOPGRADING INTERVIEW

• What were you hired to do? 
• What accomplishments are you most proud of? 
• What were some low points during that job? 
• Who were the people you worked with?
• --- Boss - name, spelling.  What was he / she like?  What will they say are your strengths and areas for improvement?
• --- Team - how would you rate team you inherited? A, B, C?  What changes did you make?  Hire / Fire?  How would you rate them when you left?  
• Why did you leave the job?

‍

Detail:

Open by saying "Thank you for taking the time to visit us today. As we have already discussed, we are going to do a chronological interview to walk through each job you have held. For each job I am going to ask you five core questions: What were you hired to do?  What accomplishments are you most proud of? What were some low points during that job? Who were the people you worked with? Why did you leave that job? At the end of the interview we will discuss your career goals and aspirations, and you will have a chance to ask me questions.

• What were you hired to do?
  
  This first question is a clear window into candidates’ goals and targets for a specific job. In a way, you are trying to discover what their scorecard might have been if they had had one. They might not know off the top of their head, so coach them by asking how they thought their success was measured in the role. Build a mental image of what their scorecard should have been. What were their mission and key outcomes? What competencies might have mattered? 

• What accomplishments are you most proud of?
  
  Question number two generates wonderful discussions about the peaks of a person’s career. This is where you will hear the stories behind the polished statements on a resume. In our experience, most candidates naturally focus on what really mattered to them at that time in their career rather than regurgitate what they put on their resume. Ideally, candidates will tell you about accomplishments that match the job outcomes they just described to you. Even better, those accomplishments will match the scorecard for the position you are trying to fill. On the flip side, we are always wary when a candidate’s accomplishments seem to lack any correlation to the expectations of the job. Be sure to listen for that clue. A Players tend to talk about outcomes linked to expectations. B and C Players talk generally about events, people they met, or aspects of the job they liked without ever getting into results. 

• What were some low points during that job?
  
  People can be hesitant to share their lows at first, opting instead to say something like, “I didn’t have any lows. Those were good years! Yup, those were good years, I tell you!” The disclaimers are understandable, but there isn’t a person alive who can seriously make this claim. Everybody, and we mean everybody, has work lows. Our recommendation is to reframe the question over and over until the candidate gets the message. “What went really wrong? What was your biggest mistake? What would you have done differently? What part of the job did you not like? In what ways were your peers stronger than you?” Don’t let the candidate off the hook. Keep pushing until the candidate shares the lows.

• Who were the people you worked with?
  
  Ask name of boss.  Spell it out.  What was it like to work with them?  “What will Mr. Smith say were your biggest strengths and areas for improvement?”
  
  How would you rate the team you inherited?”  The focus here is on how candidates approach building a strong team. Do they accept the hand they have been dealt when they inherit a new team, or do they make changes to get a better hand? What changes do they make? How long does it take? As a bonus, You can ask, “When we speak with members of your team, what will they say were your biggest strengths and weaknesses as a manager?”

• Why did you leave that job?  (Push / Pull)
  
  The final question of this vital Topgrading Interview can be one of the most insight-producing questions you ask. Were the candidates for your position promoted, recruited, or fired from each job along their career progression? Were they taking the next step in their career or running from something? How did they feel about it? How did their boss react to the news?

Conduct the Topgrading Interview with a colleague—perhaps someone from HR, another manager or member of your team. This tandem approach makes it easier to run the interview. One person can ask the questions while the other takes notes, or you can both do a little of each. Either way, two heads are always better than one.

The Three P’s 

How do you know if an accomplishment a person tells you about is great, good, okay, or lousy? Use the three P’s. The three P’s are questions you can use to clarify how valuable an accomplishment was in any context. 

The questions are: 

1. How did your performance compare to the previous year’s performance? 

2. How did your performance compare to the plan? (For example, this person sold $ 2 million and the plan was $ 1.2 million.)

3. How did your performance compare to that of peers? (For example, this person sold $ 2 million and was ranked first among thirty peers; the next-best performer sold only $ 750,000.)

REFERENCES

Call 7 - 3 bosses and 2 peers and 2 subordinates.

REFERENCE INTERVIEW GUIDE

• In what context did you work with the person?
• What are the persons biggest strengths
• What were the persons biggest areas for improvement back then
• How would you rate his / her overall performance 1-10?  Why?
• The person mentioned that they struggled with XXX on the job.  Can you tell me more about that?

How will you know when you have hit the skill-will bull’s eye? 

When (1) you are 90 percent or more confident that a candidate can get the job done because his or her skills match the outcomes on you scorecard, and (2) you are 90 percent or more confident that the candidate will be a good fit because his or her will matches the mission and competencies of the role.